Asus Transformer Book TX300

Introduction

This is a template for a future compatibility guide to running Linux with the Asus Transformer Book TX300 laptop. If you have the Asus Transformer Book TX300 and are running Linux on it please consider editing this page or adding a comment below with your compatibility details. By contributing you will help other people running this laptop or trying to make a decision on whether to buy it or not.

As soon as Ubuntu default drivers sees a 4.0 system, but cannot play sound from one “row” speakers I started to experiment and get to work

4.0 channels 4.0 speakers TO DO :

In advanced override mode, override Pin ID: 0x21 as

Connectivity: Internal (seems to make no diffrence setting it other way, but do not leave blank)

Device: Digital Out (After setting this as Speaker, I only have 2.0 Channels, but sounds from all speakers)

Other settings seems to make no diffrence after all

I also added to /etc/modprobe.d at the end:

“options snd-hda-intel model=asus-mode1”

Don't know if this changes anything

Hope that helps.

PiMikiel, 2014/08/26 19:35

options snd-hda-intel model=asus-mode1
Added at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

James, 2014/04/23 04:39

this is resolved & working in ubuntu 14.04

James, 2014/02/20 00:44

so I have an asus tx300ca transformerbook & just installed ubuntu13.10.

everything is working fine, except I cannot get the dock speakers to turn on…

I have read my way through these threads & tried some terminal commands:

” # ./hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x01b SET_PIN_WIDGET_CONTROL 0x40 ”

I dont care if the tablet speakers are on at the same time, just as long as the dock speakers are working.

Can someone please explain how to to do this?

lutzm, 2013/10/27 11:59

Today I have installed Ubuntu 13.10 as a dual boot system. After changing the BIOS to CSM mode I was able to boot a live system from an USB stick. From this live system I performed the installation. The large hard disk (/dev/hdc after booting from USB, /dev/hdb after installation) contained two equal sized partitions. I used one of them for Ubuntu. The Windows 8 system on the solid state disk (/dev/hda) remained unchanged. Grub has been installed to /dev/hda.

The main problem is now that I cannot boot Windows after removing the screen from the docking station. This would be nice to use the screen as a tablet computer. Is there another way to install grub to make this possible?

jkp, 2013/11/03 10:20

Well, you don't say why you can't boot Windows with the screen part only, so it's hard to say how to improve the situation.

Is it because parts of grub are installed on the hard disk, and grub fails to boot the computer with only the screen part present because of this? If that's the reason, you should modify your install so that all of grub is on the SSD.

Is it because in tablet mode you don't have a keyboard with which to tell grub to load Windows? If this is the reason, grub has a feature which can be used to set the selection for “next boot”. Not sure if/how/which various distros offer user interfaces for selecting this option, but the command-line utility grub-reboot can be used to set the selection for next boot. So you could set up an icon to run a script to reboot into Windows.

Edit: At least my installation of Ubuntu 13.10 doesn't seem to have a GUI option at “shut down” to reboot into Windows or some other GRUB selection, I remember using some distro many years ago which did have that option.

lutzm, 2013/11/11 20:34

Sorry for answering so late. In the end, I messed the whole booting system up and was unable to boot Windows. It took me a lot of efforts to bring Windows back, but today I succeeded…

When I wrote my first message, grub had been installed to the solid state disk located in the screen. The Ubuntu / directory and all the Ubuntu binaries were on the hard disk in the dock. I assume that also the grub binaries were on disk in the dock. I assume that this prevented booting from the screen only.

Now that my Windows is working again, I can try to reinstall Ubuntu. Is there anything I can improve compared to the previous time?

jkp, 2013/11/12 07:40

Well, as you appear to have figured, you should install all of grub in the solid state disk. Sorry, can't remember how exactly that's done, but appears I have a partition with flag bios_grub, which appears to have something to do with grub, so that's probably how I did it, googling for bios_grub will probably give more exact instructions. Perhaps the EFI boot partition was involved too, can't remember, or maybe some other EFI tricks.

jkp, 2013/11/12 07:49

Or, might be just that as I have Linux root partition also on the SSD, grub parts just went into the Linux root partition and I didn't have to do anything special because of that. Don't remember the details of how grub works or the install, sorry.

Eric Bennett, 2013/10/18 01:40

As of kernel 3.12-rc5 the only remaining things that I have not been able to get to work are;

The second battery, just doesn't show up in ACPI stats at all.
Accelerometer auto-rotate and touchscreen recalibrate for xrandr, so if you manually switch the screen rotation the touchscreen calibration is no longer correct. Also, if you add an external monitor it will work, but throw off the touch screen calibration again.

With 3.12-rc5 both the wifi reception issues and no ethernet driver and the dock speaker issues all go away. Still does seem like there are some kernel panic issues in this RC though as in the past couple of days I've had two.

in UEFI mode, I see that problem still, but I was under the impression CSM mode was essential so have not actually tried UEFI in a while.

Under CSM mode, sometimes the internal display won't show when an external monitor is connected via the microhdmi port, but I have found this never occurs from either a resume from suspend or a full cold boot, it most frequently happens during a full soft restart or a kernel panic restart, and in both cases can be fixed by some combination of temporarily removing the external display and/or forcing a cold boot (leaving system fully off for 10-20 seconds)

Anyone have any ideas how to start adding support for the second battery? Some kind of addition / extension to normal (ACPI?) battery support code or something else?

Brave, 2013/09/05 12:11

Not sure if this is relevant, but it could be. I have an extra motherboard lying around 'cause I need to customize it a bit. Before changing motherboards I re-installed Win8 to see if it stuck through the change, it did. Strange thing is though, that the dock was almost 100% out of play. I could charge through it and it would pick up things like the wifi turning on (Light in F2), but the keyboard and touchpad was not working at all and the 2'nd battery showed 0% although it was fully charged and I had the green light. When I put the original motherboard back everything works as a charm. Don't know if it helps but it's worth a comment.

jkp, 2013/09/05 17:27

Thanks, could be helpful.

There's some kind of power save mode where most of the dock is turned off to save battery, but the dock battery is used for extra power. I don't remember where that is switched on & off, but one explanation for what you saw might be your extra motherboard has that setting on. Which suggests it's non-volatile, in BIOS NVRAM, right? And maybe could be gotten into with BIOS setting tools.

Brave, 2013/09/05 17:46

Found some interesting stuff underneath the WiFi-module too. If you take a look at this foto http://ubuntuone.com/35vBEfV1RBpiXuYL0xGSai you see there a pins named “WINKEY_ISP” and “LPC_DEBUG”. Made me wonder if the Win8 key is hard-wired stuff more than a stored key somewhere.

Interesting name for the supply pin, V_WIN - wild guess, could it be “voltage Windows”, some kind of (hardware? software?) recognition of a MS OS, and switch the MSWIN-related memory? chip on only when the OS is MS?

Brave, 2013/09/05 18:38

I was thinking along the same line. Any Ideas for the “KB_15PIN”, do you think its keyboard related. There's 25 pins coming from the dock, maybe 15 of them end up there?

I suddenly feel an urge to open up one of my Android Transformers to check for similarities! :)

jkp, 2013/09/05 19:48

Well would be natural if it was a 15-pin keyboard interface.

BTW found some info on the switch-dock-partially-off mode, marketing term appears to be “battery up technology” so googling for it gives some info. According to marketing material, the mode should leave keyboard and touchpad on. But perhaps there is separate power control for different devices and maybe your other motherboard had also the keyboard & touchpad bits off.

Update: Actually, would be nice to have a way to switch the internal keyboard & touchpad off. I prefer an external Lenovo keyboard with trackpoint, and if I could switch the internal KB off, I could put the external KB on top of the normal KB without worrying about keys being pressed. Maybe there's a software way to do that anyway, but if there's some power saving from switching KB off, that'd be nice too.

jkp, 2013/09/05 20:27

In case you will swap the motherboards again in the future, maybe you can take a look at the NVRAM with nvramtool -x to see which bits/bytes might be different. But there's either a BIOS setting or a Win8 tool to switch the “battery up technology” on, so could be that if it's NVRAM-controlled, could be found out by switching it on there and seeing how NVRAM changes.

jkp, 2013/09/05 21:00

OK, the “battery up mode” definitely seems controlled by something non-volatile (but isn't, see update), or at least something retained after reboot - switched the mode on with Win8, and it remained after reboot for Linux: USB keyboard & dock HD didn't work for Linux.

A word of WARNING when using Win8 - apparently MS is keen to destroy partitions with non-MS contents, as Win8 offered to format a partition.

Also if the non-volatile setting space holds bits for switching on/off keyboard & ports, things might get a bit tricky, or perhaps even BRICKY. If the bits are set into a position which disabled keyboard, touchpad, USB ports and dock HD, depending on configuration it might be hard to boot the machine so that the NVRAM can be reset to values which let the user to control the machine. (can it boot from the micro-SD slot? can grub/BIOS be controlled without a working keyboard?)

The bad news is that nvramtool -x shows no difference between “battery up” mode and normal mode.

Update: It's not non-volatile. After powerdown, the HD spins up and external keyboard works. So I guess that invalidates my theory about your other motherboard.

One weird thing though - after switching the “battery up” mode on with Win8, powering down, then choosing Win8 from grub with external keyboard, I got a windows error (incorrect header or something, I forgot), and windows said a reboot is needed, and after that the machine went to grub, and external USB keyboard was again not working.

Update2: Thinking of the paragraph immediately above, probably means that Win8 read the “battery up” mode setting from whereever it was stored and applied it, then when Win8 went bellyup and rebooted, the setting was in effect for Linux.

Brave, 2013/09/08 19:10

So i changed back to the new motherboard. I am guessing some of the trouble I'm having is related to BIOS settings. I have win8 installed in legacy-mode and I'm guessing the new motherboard is set to uefi by default. That along with other settings are busting me up. I was able to boot to BIOS without the keyboard by removing the SSD but without the keyboard theres no way for me to navigate and change settings so I'm still kind of stuck. Also hard to install a new OS in uefi-mode without usb.

jkp, 2013/09/08 23:10

From what I saw, I'd say the dock starts with keyboard & other devices on at powerup, and then Win8 turns it off if configured to do so. So it seems odd to me that the keyboard wouldn't work if you just boot to BIOS.

Have you considered if what you see might be a hardware or firmware version incompatibility issue? The TX300 is a relatively new machine, and if the design has been changed from initial versions, might be there's incompatibility. Just a thought.

jkp, 2013/09/08 23:23

As for how to control battery #2 (dock battery) and dock device power, I wonder if these ACPI messages are relevant:

[ 11.506806] ACPI Warning: 0x0000000000000428-0x000000000000042f SystemIO conflicts with Region \GPIS 1 (20130517/utaddress-251)
[ 11.506813] ACPI Warning: 0x0000000000000428-0x000000000000042f SystemIO conflicts with Region \PMIO 2 (20130517/utaddress-251)
[ 11.506817] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver
[ 11.506822] ACPI Warning: 0x0000000000000530-0x000000000000053f SystemIO conflicts with Region \GPIO 1 (20130517/utaddress-251)
[ 11.506825] ACPI Warning: 0x0000000000000530-0x000000000000053f SystemIO conflicts with Region \GP01 2 (20130517/utaddress-251)
[ 11.506829] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver
[ 11.506830] ACPI Warning: 0x0000000000000500-0x000000000000052f SystemIO conflicts with Region \GPIO 1 (20130517/utaddress-251)
[ 11.506834] ACPI Warning: 0x0000000000000500-0x000000000000052f SystemIO conflicts with Region \GP01 2 (20130517/utaddress-251)
[ 11.506837] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver

I ran the following to get some info on the ACPI messages above. Q86 is described as DOCK OUT EVENT. Can't find anything which would obviously tell something about how to control “BATTERY UP” mode, but I don't know much about ACPI so I'm not good at looking.

cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT > dsdt.dat
iasl -d dsdt.dat

jkp, 2013/09/09 14:36

Found what looks like a tablet (pad) / notebook (nb) mode switch, perhaps this is relevant.

* Seems occasionally when disconnecting power and/or moving the computer the connection to the HD at the keyboard part is lost

glo0m, 2013/08/10 09:44

I just tried a couple of Linux distributions on my TX300.
Which Kernel is “the best” to use? I found, on the newer Kernels the Intel graphics doesn't work. Do I have to patch myself, or is there any Kernel version where all essential components (LAN, Wireless, Graphic) work out of the box?

Update: I tested this, and it works, e.g. for 3.10.9, switching CSM on in BIOS/UEFI makes the internal display work with an unpatched kernel. Also the keyboard & display brightness FN-key adjustment works.

At the kernel thread there's a small kernel patch I created to make the display work also in UEFI mode; I'm running 3.11-rc7 now with the patch, internal display works in UEFI boot mode.

One so far unresolved issue wrt kernel is use of the dock speakers. There's a patch at (2), but it's not ready yet, doesn't sense dock/undock. However there's also a usermode way to switch dock speakers, search for hda-verb at this page.

I have just opened the tablet, so if anybody has any questions about what's inside and so on; Fire away! Easily replaceable SSD, wifi-module and battery are the positives I've got so far.

glo0m, 2013/08/10 09:56

Did you make pictures?
How hard it is to open? I guess I have to start with the 2 screws that are inside the slots where it is locked to the docking station?

Brave, 2013/08/11 09:23

I started with the 2 screws inside the slots, but I don't think that's necessary, only had to take them of when I took the motherboard out. There are clips all the way around that has to be pried open. A bit nervous when doing it but it went OK.

Nothing is attached to the back cover (the way it is on the Transformer Android tablets, I've opened those to) so it flips off easily when the clips are loose.

glo0m, 2013/08/11 21:16

Ok, I just opened mine as well successfully (it's definitely necessary to remove the 2 screws). Everything looks very solid at first glance.

I also opened my Eeepad Transformer in the past, but this one was easier, it's more stiff and not so easy to deform.

Is anyone else having issues getting the install disk to boot? I have tried both a dvd and usb to boot and install ubuntu off of. They work in my other laptop, however on this laptop, after you select the grub option “Install now”, the screen just goes black and nothing ever happens. I tried the latest linux mint, and the same exact issue occured. I tried various boot flags such as “nomodeset”, “i915.modeset=0” “i915.modeset=1” and a few others. Nothing helped.

Any suggestions would be swell,

Mike

jkp, 2013/06/25 22:44

Can't comment on Ubuntu install disks as I haven't tried those on the device.

However, I had no trouble getting the GRML USB stick distro to run (after modifying bios settings to boot from the stick). Then I installed ubuntu from GRML with debootstrap. Well, there are a few hoops to jump through with installing Ubuntu that way, so I can't really recommend that if you're looking for an easy way for install.

A few things which might be wreaking havoc with some install methods (not sure how current Ubuntu does things so may or may not be relevant):

* UEFI boot
* mostly sda is the silicon drive and sdb is the hard disk, but occasionally the other way around
* the partition tables are GPT, meaning not all partitioning software & grub versions can handle them, and that a separate bios_grub partition may be needed.

mtotho, 2013/06/26 21:48

I actually figured it out.. I can't believe I overlooked this. “Secureboot” is enabled in bios automatically. After disabling it, it booted fine. After 2 days of troubleshooting I decided to post here. Should have waited 2 1/2 days I suppose :/

Thanks for your response.

MikeI actually figured it out.. I can't believe I overlooked this. “Secureboot” is enabled in bios automatically. After disabling it, it booted fine. After 2 days of troubleshooting I decided to post here. Should have waited 2 1/2 days I suppose :/

Thanks for your response.

Mike

jkp, 2013/06/20 08:43

I have issues with external displays:

* First micro HDMI → HDMI cable I tested didn't work. I took it back to the store and got it replaced with one of the same make, the new one mostly works but sometimes there's no image. This is the same with Linux and Win8, so probably nothing to do with Linux, but mentioning in hope of hearing if others have similar issues.

* Mini display port → HDMI cable didn't work, not with Linux, not with Windows. The store thought it might be a compatibility issue, and offered they'll take the cable back, and said they take it off the shelf. Then I got a Dr. Bott mini display port → HDMI adapter. Same thing, no reaction from Linux or Win8.

I don't know what's going on: a compatibility issue with the Display Port HDMI, a faulty unit affecting both microHDMI and miniDisplayPort, a faulty unit with microHDMI and compatibility issue with miniDP or something else. Any pointers on how to get this to work are appreciated, is there a special kind of miniDP adapter needed? Or must I go via a miniDP → VGA adapter? My other monitor shows fullHD VGA so that would be doable.

When getting the device, I was hoping I could use two external HDMI monitors at the same time. X logs show HDMI1 and HDMI2, suggesting this would be doable. Two external + also internal active at the same apparently mostly doesn't work with HD4000 devices, but might in some cases, I don't know if it would work with TX300.

Update: Experience from net seems to be that the simple miniDP → HDMI/DVI adapter's won't work, but miniDP → VGA will work.

Update 2: Wow, the computer does work with three fullHD displays at the same time, with a different image on each! One is a VGA via an Apple brand miniDisplayPort → VGA converter, one is via a microHDMI → HDMI cable, third is the internal display.

Also, some googling told me that other people have had issues with the microHDMI interface, too - there are reports about microHDMI → HDMI adapter or cable which works with another device not working with the TX300.

jkp, 2013/06/18 20:53

Almost all things work quite well for me now after patches to wireless, sound, display (kernel >= 3.10rc2) and bluetooth.

Still a couple of issues with patched 3.10-rc6 kernel:

* asus-nb-wmi is not (always?) loaded at startup
* using fn+f3/f4 to adjust keyboard led brightness occasionally fails (might be the result of the previous; display brightness fn-keys work after manual load of asus-nb-wmi though)
* can't find out how to make an external mic work - well, probably just will use a USB converter which also will support a headset

Installed gnome 3 to see how well the touch UI will work - a patch needed for that too (can't touch-click top bar items), not transformer book -specific but including here anyway, patch at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=245495 fixes it for me.

jkp, 2013/06/16 04:41

A question - does anyone know if the SD card slot supports SDIO, or ideas how to find out if it does? Looking for a way to connect an external USB keyboard to only the tablet part.

jkp, 2013/06/15 10:32

Some issues with external ThinkPad keyboard (keyboard/mouse combo), possibly related to power savings (userland?) as these surfaced when on battery:

* Occasionally drops typed characters
* After a while of inactivity, mouse cursor stops being moved by mouse pointer. Pressing a key (e.g. shift) reactivates the mouse.

Addendum: This observation with kernels 3.10-rc5 & -rc6, haven't seen with kernel 3.9.6.

jkp, 2013/06/14 19:27

acpi_backlight=vendor makes adjustment of backlight work with Ubuntu 13.04 gnome 3 control center with kernel 3.9.6. But even without acpi_backlight=vendor, brightness can be adjusted with e.g. echo 800 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness on kernels e.g. ubuntu 3.8 and mainline 3.9.5 & 3.9.6.

Couldn't get any of the proposed fixes to work as far as to get the fn+fX keys to work for backlight brightness. I do get keyboard leds brightness and display backlight brightness adjustable (via appropriate /sys/class files) by manually loading asus_nb_wmi module at least part of the time when loading of asus_nb_wmi fails at startup. Failure at startup might be related to doing a reboot, seems to work at all or almost all times when doing a powerdown and fresh startup.

* display brightness adjustment works on 3.8.0 but not on e.g. 3.9.5 or 3.6.11 or 3.10-rc5.

* ethernet (RJ45 connector) driver is included in kernel 3.9.5, for other kernels a separate debian package is available, works with dkms

* strangely, internal X display doesn't work with kernel 3.10-rc4 and 3.10-rc5, though an external HDMI-connected monitor works fine. A workaround (which works at least part of the time) is to create an xorg.conf with e.g. 3.9.6 kernel X -configure and write it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. UPDATE: this is a bug introduced between 3.10-rc1 and 3.10-rc2, fix available, see https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59841

Michael Toth, 2013/07/30 21:22

The only thing stopping me from using the Ubuntu partition right now is the wifi. I am having trouble applying the patch. I consider myself very tech literate, but I have never dealt with linux on a kernel level. If you have any suggestions on how to apply the patch, a guide, etc. Or if you know a way to get the kernel with the patch already applied, that would be swell.

Thanks in advance,
Mike

jkp, 2013/08/25 12:34

The wifi issue is fixed with the newest mainline kernels. Not sure for which version the fix has been merged, but wifi works on 3.11.0-rc6. I'm compiling 3.10.9 and can report in a while whether that works, too.